chemo sucko

Had the consult yesterday with my new sarcoma doctor..the other one in on vacation for 8 weeks, must be rough. It boils down to this, they don't know if anything actually works or not because , as I've heard 3,000 times already, no one else gets this kind of cancer, so there's no actual studies, therefore all the evidence they have is anecdotal. He basically told me that I could do nothing and wait and watch, but up to 70% of people will have it come back and when it does, it's just a matter of time, there's no curing it. He said that they have good outcomes there with people who do chemo, but again, he wouldn't tell me what that means. I think they don't want to be haunted by me if I go fast, get pissed afterwards and have nothing better to do in the afterlife. The therapy that he's recommending is a 6 month regiment of Gemcitabine, Abraxane and Bevecizumab, every 2 weeks by IV for 3 hours each. El sucko. Side effects suck too, nausea, vomiting, hair loss, diarrhea, peripheral nerve damage, blood clots, you name it. The thought of doing nothing is not an option, I couldn't live with myself if I cheated my babies for even one month because I didn't want the side effects. There's no guarantees that this will do anything, but at least I will know that I've done everything possible to stick around as long as I can for them, and for chocolate covered strawberries:). I'm back on my feet again..in lab doing nothing...just like any other normal grad student.

mournings

When I wake up each morning, I don't have the pain meds numbing my brain. My mind is always going a mile a minute between reality and the thought that this can't possibly be real. Maybe I haven't fully accepted this yet, maybe our brains are designed never to accept stuff like this. It only takes a minute to shake it off though and get a smile back on my face. Shortly after, I'll inevitably hear those sweet little voices asking me if I want my coffee...just kidding, although getting waited on hand and foot is wonderful, the true joy in all of this is how happy it makes me to hear my kiddies pitter pattering their way toward me in the mornings joyously calling out "mommy, mommy".

DraiNo

I am sooo much happier now that it's gone! You just can't appreciate your body until you get a 7 inch drain yanked out of it. I'm happy again and feel like I'll be back to "normal" soon. I still haven't heard back from pathology, so I don't know if the margins are clear. Later this week, when we know, I'll meet with my sarcoma doctor and develop a plan for fighting this ghost. I'll schedule the uterine MRI for sometime this week too. The girls got new beds delivered today and Maddy has graduated to a big girl bed. She looks so little in that giant twin. I'm so happy to see her through this tiny little milestone, as insignifiacnt as it may seem, it's a part of her growing up, and I got to tuck her in tonight. I'm the lucky one tonight:)

no matter how you slice it

It doesn't feel good to have your boobie removed. Thank God for pain meds, can't imagine what we went through in the days of yore. I don't miss it at all, but just can't wait til I'm healed and can move on from this. I took a shower yesterday by myself, like an idiot. I thought maye it would be nice to sit in the shower for a while after Ted and mom took little C to the dance recital. Everything was fine until I tried to put my surgical bra back on and couldn't. It took me 10 minutes and I guess it freaked me out a little and got me out of breath. Afterward, I sat down and couldn't catch my breath and had visions of cancer dancing through my lungs...good times. Even though I though I thought I was controlling my breathing, I guess I wasn't and it sent me into a panic attack. Never had one of those before. I never knew how physical they are, I tried calling the visiting nurse but they said it would be hours before she could get there. By that time, my body was going numb and my hands began to cramp. I ended up calling 911 just to have someone talk me through it, but they sent 3 towns worth of emergency response teams, silly waste of time. I told them over the phone what was happening, but apparently, they didn't think they were adequately spending your tax dollars. By the time the EMT's showed up 2 minutes later, my hands were so cramped I couldn't hold my phone. So weird and freaky, DO NOT try this at home! They got me breathing normally and within 5 minutes, I was able to sign a release from transport. I was tingly for about a half an hour as though my whole body had fallen asleep. For me, the funniest part of this whole experience was that my 14 year old stepson didn't know any of this happened until he came down from his room a couple minutes after everyone left. By that time, I was sitting in bed watching taxi and eating crackers like nothing happened. I think he thinks I made it all up:) I used to judge people a little bit when they told me their stories of panic attacks, I guess I figured they should just suck it up and be strong. I really thought I had been breathing, that I could control it, but until there was a 200 pound dude sitting there next to me forcing me to breath through my nose, I didn't realize I was hyperventilating. So weird! Yet another fabulous new in my life. Not to worry though, like I said, 5 minutes after they left, it was like nothing happened. Now if I can get the damned cat to stop jumping on my incision, everything would be just fine:)

Danka Shane

You guys are something else, with all your kind words and love and support. I really appreciate it and hope your spreading it all over the place, not just in my general direction (as monty python would do). Been laying around for a couple days now on morphine trying as hard as I can to ignore the nasty drain sticking out of my body. Don't know anything about clear margins, fibroids or treatments yet, but will update this when I do. Just stoppping by to say high.

Post Mastectomy Surgery (Graphic Content)

Good Morning fellow mammals. Funny how man named an entire class of animals after boobs. I guess you're only hyper aware of boobs if you're a man or if you just lost one. They gave me a radical mastectomy--muscle, lymph nodes and all. We'll find out if there is or was any residual cancer in the breast after the biopsy in a few days and whether or not they got clear margins. I have a lovely and stylish tube sticking out of the side of my chest where I can watch blood and other fluid draining out of the tissue where my breast was. The three "fibroids" in my abdomen will be tested today via ultra sound in order to rule out a possible spread to my uterus--small chance that it is anything other than fibroids but we want to make sure.

Special thanks to my post op nurse Josette and to my room nurse, Kelly--you guys are awesome. Team Corrie was fabulous in all of its pink glory--thanks to everyone here and everywhere who wore their team corrie shirts! Also, thanks to everyone who flashed someone yesterday, your silliness is much appreciated (as I am sure the sight of your boobs were).

life is good, here's why for me

So I have to go through this bullshit surgery and get chemo and wonder how many months/years I'll be around, and the list goes on..... but it's totally worth it. I woke up with a smile on my face today and still feel like I'm one of the lucky ones. Somewhere along the line I started on a path that has never failed to bring me back to happiness. It took me a LONG time to get here. I was never intrinsically happy, in fact I was about as cynical and self loathing as you could be. I made a conscious effort to change that about myself and it was actually pretty simple. For me, it only took these four simple realizations: The first thing I had to come to terms with was the fact that no one really cares about you. I don't mean that in a callus way, and of course this isn't true in extreme circumstances, but when you have a conversation with someone and walk away, there's almost a 100% guarantee that that person has refocused their thought process back onto themselves. Try this exercise, try for one day to be cognizant of how much time you spend thinking about yourself. So if everyones pretty much self absorbed, there's no place for them to be thinking about you, so therefore there's no reason to care what they think, at all. There goes insecurity right out the window. Next, instead of beating yourself up, be a friend to yourself. There's enough people in the world who are looking to drag you down into the hole that they're in, but that's really more about them then you. Screw them, be nice to yourself, why not? Enjoy the moment, savor it, it's timeless and therefore dimensionless, you can go as shallow or deep as you want in it baby. Love.